Jose Desiderio Valverde

Jose Desiderio Valverde (1822-22 December 1903) was President of the Dominican Republic from 7 July 1857 to 31 August 1858, succeeding Buenaventura Baez and preceding Pedro Santana.

Biography
Jose Desiderio Valverde was born in Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic in 1822. He joined the militia during the independence movement of 1844, and he defeated the Haitian attempt to invade the Cibao Valley on 30 March 1844. In 1845, he became a deputy for the Province of Santiago, and he formed a Cibao provisional government in 1857. That year, he became President of the Dominican Republic, but he was forced to resign after a coup d'etat in 1858 and went into exile in the United States. In 1861, he returned to his country when Spain occupied the Dominican Republic, and he collaborated with the Spanish administration until patriots again declared the country's independence. Valverde went into exile in Spain, where he acquired several farms in Valladolid. He returned to his home island as an old man, and he died in Santiago in 1903.